Portrait of Susanna Dickinson (1814-1883), McArdle Collection, Texas State Library and Archives, [source]
Susanna Dickinson, Messenger of the Alamo
Coming to Texas Susanna Wilkerson Dickinson was born in Tennessee around 1814 and married to Almaron Dickinson when she was just 15. She came with him to Texas and they settled along the San Marcos River in what is now Caldwell County in 1831. When the Texas Revolution broke out, Almaron Dickinson went to fight for the Texans and wound up in San Antonio in the fall of 1835, where Susanna and their 2 year old daughter Angelina joined him.
At the Alamo When the fighting resumed in February 1836, the Dickinsons moved into the Alamo. When the Alamo fell, Susanna became a widow. Santa Anna interviewed all the women and had Susanna identify all the important Texan men. He then sent her and her daughter to the Texan army with a letter from himself, warning the Texans to surrender, and with the famous “Victory or Death” letter from William Travis. Susanna provided one of the few eyewitness accounts of the Alamo siege and stood as witness for the heirs of those killed at the Alamo.
After the War Susanna had a rough life after the war. She was hounded for the rest of her life to tell the story of the Alamo over and over. She married again, first to John Williams, who she divorced because he beat her, then to Francis Herring, who died of alcoholism, then to Peter Bellows, who divorced her on grounds of infidelity. In 1856, Susanna and 21 year old Angelina sold the land awarded to them for Almaron Dickinson’s service. Finally, in 1857, at 43, Susanna married Joseph Hannig, a prosperous cabinet maker and the couple moved to Austin. Susanna would remain with Hannig until her death in 1883. Hannig buried her in Oakwood Cemetery where he would join her in 1890, despite having remarried. Their house in Austin is now the Susanna Dickinson Museum.
The Susanna Dickinson Museum, By Daderot - Own work, CC0, [source]